Police suspect DUI in Dan Ryan fatality

Man, 33, standing on shoulder struck

Antuan Adams wasn't looking when the van came barreling at him. But his fiance Deirdre Jackson and her 12-year-old son saw it.

Adams, 33, was struck and killed on the shoulder of the Dan Ryan Expressway early Sunday morning by a suspected drunken driver while Jackson and her son watched in horror.

"He didn't see it. The van just ran right into him, threw him about 10 or 15 feet," Jackson said. "I saw it, and it was at that point that I just fell to the ground. I knew he was gone."

State authorities were expecting charges against a 29-year-old Chicago man who may have been driving drunk when he struck Adams, who had stopped to inspect damage on his car from an accident just minutes earlier.

Adams--of the 14900 block of Washington Avenue in Harvey--Jackson and her two sons were heading south on the expressway about 2:30 a.m. to her home in Harvey after visiting with cousins, she said.

As they neared 95th Street, Adams' 1993 Oldsmobile hit a stranded vehicle that was broken down on the expressway's shoulder and partially sticking out into the lane.

"By the time we saw the car, we were too close, so he swerved," Jackson said.

They pulled the car over to the shoulder near where the Dan Ryan meets the Bishop Ford Freeway and got out of the vehicle.

Two other people stopped to help and were talking to Adams, telling him they had contacted police, Jackson said. He was standing right next to her, she said.

"The guy was telling him, `I've got help on the way,'" she said. "As soon as the guy stepped back, the van just swooped him away. He was gone."

"I was just holding my kids, telling them to stay on the side. I didn't want them to get hit," Jackson said. "The guy Antuan was talking to was just saying: `Oh my God. Oh my God.'"

The van pulled over and the suspect got out, attempting to run off, Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Al Gentile said. The strangers who had stopped to help tried to stop him, Jackson said. "They were telling him, `Don't run! Don't run!'" she said. "But he just took off running."

Chicago police caught the suspect shortly afterward at the top of the ramp exiting the expressway near 96th Street and Wentworth Avenue.

"They happened to be at the right place at the right time," Gentile said.

Adams was taken to Stroger Hospital before he was pronounced dead about 5:10 a.m., authorities said.

The suspect was treated for injuries at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. His blood-alcohol level was also tested at the hospital, though results were still pending Sunday night, Gentile said.

Police were also investigating the van's speed at the time of the crash. Witnesses said the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed, police said. Jackson thinks the van was going at least 85 m.p.h.

The suspect was released from the hospital into state police custody and is being held in the south suburbs, police said.

Jackson said Adams was a family man who stayed home to help with her children and liked playing basketball and going to drag races. She and Adams had planned to get married some time around her birthday, Nov. 5. The couple had been dating for about eight years, and they were planning a small wedding, she said.

"We were always together. We were never apart. He took care of my kids. He made sure they were well provided for," Jackson said. "I'm going to miss him."